EMAP - History

History

Richard Winfrey purchased the Spalding Guardian in 1887 and later purchased the Lynn News and the Peterborough Advertiser; he also started the North Cambs Echo. Sir Richard Winfrey (1858–1944) was a Liberal politician and campaigner for agricultural rights and the papers were used to promote his political views in and around Spalding, Boston, Sleaford and Peterborough. During World War II Winfrey's newspaper interests began to be passed over to his son, Richard Pattinson Winfrey (1902–1985). In 1947, under the direction of 'Pat' Winfrey, the family's newspaper titles were consolidated to form the East Midland Allied Press. The company was formed by the merger of the Northamptonshire Printing and Publishing Co., the Peterborough Advertiser Co., the West Norfolk and King's Lynn Newspaper Co. and commercial printing sections at Rushden, King's Lynn and Bury St. Edmunds.

The magazine division was founded on a hunch when the company's printing presses lay dormant between printing issues of the local papers. The staff gambled that a weekly angling publication would be a hit - and in 1953 Angling Times was born. This was soon joined by another weekly heavyweight when EMAP bought Motor Cycle News from its founder in 1956 for a hundred pounds. It had been launched two years earlier. Both remain in the top 10 profit earners for the company (now Bauer) to this day. The Winfrey family continued to work on the management team of EMAP until the early 1980s and remained large shareholders until two thirds of the company were sold to Bauer Media Group in early 2008

EMAP eventually became a PLC in the late 1970s under the guidance of the extremely successful partnership of Sir Robin Miller and David Arculus.

In 1996 EMAP PLC agreed to sell its 65 newspaper titles, including the 300-year-old Stamford Mercury, to Johnston Press for £111 million.

In 2006, Emap sold its French division to Italy's Arnoldo Mondadori Editore.

On 27 July 2007, Emap announced that it was undertaking a review of the structure of the group in response to receiving a number of unsolicited proposals to purchase parts of the company.

On 12 September 2007, Emap announced that it had completed the disposal of its Australian consumer magazine division, Emap Australia for approximately £38m to ACP Magazines Ltd.

On 29 January 2008, Emap PLC completed the sale of its radio, television and consumer media businesses to German company Bauer for £1.14bn.

The remainder of the company was taken over by Eden Bidco Ltd, a company incorporated for the purpose of the acquisition by its owners, the private equity investment group Apax and the Guardian Media Group in late March/early April 2008.

In March 2012, the company announced that it would be renamed Top Right Group, and that its magazines, events and data businesses would be separated into three standalone companies. The Emap name will continue to be used for the magazines operation, which at the time accounted for around 18 percent of the group's turnover. The database business is to be called 4C Group, and the events unit will be renamed I2i Events Group.